It had become the assumption that James Murdoch would take over from his father running News Corporation, after four relatively successful years at BSkyB and a couple of nowhere-in-particular ones at the mothership in London before those phone-hacking allegations surfaced. It's not obvious he can succeed now though, after the declaration of the shareholder vote on Wednesday night which saw 58% of all non-Murdoch investors voting against his reappointment to the board. The proportion rises to 66% when you strip out the company's second largest investor, the Saudi Prince Alwaleed, and there were very few abstentions.

This cannot be considered the protest votes of a few activists – the scale of the revolt is too large for that. In truth, it is more troubling than the percentages suggest because only a third of the overall stock have voting rights. True Murdoch economic control is 12%. Investors showed they can distinguish too: Rupert Murdoch still won the support of independents including the Saudi billionaire by two to one. More to the point, Chase Carey, who runs the Fox television and film businesses and whose surname doesn't end in Murdoch, was backed by comfortably more than three to one. If independent shareholder opinion counts for anything, Carey is the successor now.

Of course, James Murdoch can say that he was at Sky when all the alleged phone hacking took place, but the fact remains that when the allegations of hacking first surfaced he presided over 18 months of denials. That may have changed now, but each additional allegation from the past nevertheless dents his credibility. Next month James has again been asked to explain himself before a committee of MPs. Giving endless testimony is no place for a corporate leader – next month Sky shareholders can reflect on what has happened this year when they decide whether to re-elect the 38-year-old as a director of the broadcaster.